BOOK INTRODUCTION

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One of my goals in writing this book is to document how the resources of Southeast Asia in general, and Thailand in particular, have been abused and in many cases squandered during the region’s rapid rise toward industrialization. To do so, it will be necessary to examine the social and political roots of the mismanagement and corruption that has contributed to the environmental crisis. Just as important is the reaction to this crisis: how governments and other institutions have responded; how an indigenous environmental movement has emerged from the grass roots and, when allowed a modicum of freedom, evolved into a potent force. Examined closely, many of these green groups turn out to be part of a broader non-governmental participatory democracy movement. In Thailand at least, this is the closest thing there is to a true left-wing opposition.

Another goal is to compare Southeast Asia’s environmental issues, and the way they play out, with those in the West. It’s particularly fascinating to look at the contrasts, to examine for instance why golf courses and national parks are so much more controversial in Thailand than in the US. In some cases, these differences can be explained by vagaries of culture and history, in others by discrepancies in wealth and education levels. But one of the biggest factors–and one that receives surprisingly scarce mention in connection to preserving resources–is the prevalence of corruption in the global South (developing countries, including Southeast Asia). Although corruption certainly occurs among governments in the global North (developed countries, including Japan and the West), it exists on an entirely different scale in the developing world. A major feature of this book, therefore, is to reveal how my colleagues and I exposed various scandals, and to point out how such systemic abuse has made protecting the environment more difficult than it need be.

Home to half a billion people and some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, Southeast Asia’s growing demand for resources is already having a direct impact on the global environment. More broadly, exploring the region’s environmental crisis and its responses helps us understand the challenges being faced throughout the developing world, including the region’s giant neighbors, China and India. Such extrapolation is always dangerous, of course, since ultimately every locale faces its own unique situation, but I will argue there are some general lessons that can be learned.

For one thing, environmentalism turns out to be something of a different beast in the South. Unlike in the North, where the movement began to flourish in wealthy democracies whose people had mostly migrated to the cities, in developing countries it is emerging in societies that are still mostly rural and poor, and which are moving toward democracy as they rapidly industrialize. So whereas the green movement in the North tends to focus on the middle class, in the South it’s more centered on the farmers and fishermen who rely on natural resources for their livelihoods, and more concerned with who gets to use resources, not just with how they are used. This mixture of social and green activism—what I call the “environmental democracy” movement--is closest in spirit to the US’s environmental justice movement, whose activists generally focus on urban and minority populations but have less clout than the mainstream green groups. In Asia, such activists are the mainstream, since the majority of the population there is still underprivileged, and the middle class remains a minority.

Given the nature of societies in the developing world, and the endemic problem of corruption, the strategies needed to protect forests, fisheries and other resources are much more basic in the South. When it comes to the environment, most Asian governments have failed their citizens. Even those that have passed good laws tend to do a poor job of enforcing them. Improving governance therefore requires the development of institutions–particularly the media, the legal system, NGOs and an environmentally responsible business sector–that make up a healthy and vibrant civil society.

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